


The Long Way Around

by Aurumsky



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: And angst, Author takes Liberties, Happens between canon, It's me being self-indulgent, Might have fluff, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 21:05:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16818436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurumsky/pseuds/Aurumsky
Summary: Tony Stark knows a man. He calls himself the Doctor. (He also knows a woman, named Donna Noble.)Tony Stark and the Doctor, over the years.(Or, alternatively, Tony Stark, falling in love across time and space.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Twenty years, Tony and the Doctor.  
> Donna comes later.

The Doctor has a habit of promising the stars to anyone he likes. Tony was promised those stars, but he never quite got them. Instead he got more alien technology than he could ever need, a permanent hearing issue because of all the explosions, and an awful lot of running.

It was still very nice. Tony had a good run.

\----

The first time they meet, the Doctor is old. To a nine-year old Tony to who Jarvis is the oldest person he knows, anyway.

It's christmas, his parents are away in London and Jarvis went with them, but Ana stayed behind to take care of Tony. Peggy is visiting -running from Howard, she'd said while twirling Tony in the air- and the sky is on fire.

Peggy commanderes Tony and Ana to stay inside while she carelessly goes outside, alone, like a fool. Like Ana keeps muttering to herself.

Peggy comes back inside soaking wet with a man. He has greying hair, frowny face, a scottish accent and sunglasses Tony really wants to try out. The man introduces himself as The Doctor, and Tony very much likes him. He goes on about aliens and his eyes get really wide when Peggy introduces herself.

"Peggy Carter?" he says and shakes her arm very long, "Oh, I am such a fan. Really love your work."

He doesn't get Tony or Ana's names, because the next thing something breaks down the window and the Doctor tells them to run.

The Doctor saves the day -as he claims he is known for doing -and Tony misses half of the action because Ana's grip on his hand is so tight he doesn't want to leave her alone when Peggy and the Doctor round the corner.

It was the best Christmas ever, even when Ana and Peggy had to get the window fixed before Howard found out.

\----

The next time they meet the Doctor has shaved his hair, wears a leather jacket and has big ears. He's witty and sarcastic, dark in the way Tony just needs right then.

Tony is fourteen. He's two months away from going to MIT and Jarvis has just passed away. The Doctor appears in front of him on the street, jumpy and excited, and he isn't alone. He has a woman named Rose Tyler on his side, a beautiful blonde who is like sunlight. The Doctor doesn't recognize Tony nor does Tony recognize him, but by the time he figures it out, Tony has also figured out why the Doctor doesn't know him.

Tony helps them take care of their alien situation, gets a gentle talk from Rose who sees the sadness the Doctor is too busy to adress. Rose looks at him with a very kind expression and tells him that the Doctor sometimes forgets what humans are like, and doesn't always seem to notice the tears.

She assures him he does.

Tony returns to Ana and Peggy's side and sits through the funeral of Edwin Jarvis.

\----

Three months later, weekend, between Saturday and Sunday somewhere around three o'klock, his dorm room door gets a knock.

James went home that weekend, so Tony is alone. True to the preposterous assumptions James makes of him, Tony opens the door.

It's a man with a blue suit, ridiculous brown hair and brown eyes, sporting the eyebrow of judgement Tony returns ten-fold.

"Who are you?"

The man tucks something back into his breast pocket. The shape of it is disturbingly familiar. "Do I know you?"

Tony crosses his arms, opens his mouth, and- " _Doctor_!" someone, a woman, hisses. Her voice is extremely familiar. Tony sticks his head out the doorway as the man turns to face the hallway.

" _What_?" he hisses back into the darkness.

Tony can just see the figure of a crouched human outside the range of the light from his room. There is a gasp instead of an actual answer, and footsteps.

"Tony?" Rose asks. Tony feels his eyes widen.

"Rose? What're you doing here?"

"I don't know," she smiles, breathlessly, "the TARDIS landed us here. The Doctor thinks there's something weird going on here."

Tony eyes the man beside her dubiously. "The Doctor? He's the Doctor?"

Rose looks puzzled. "Yes? You've met him."

"Yes, when he was bald and had big ears!"

"Hey!" the Doctor says indigantly.

"They were big," Rose replies casually, then turns back to Tony, "what're you doing at MIT?"

"I'm a student here." Tony says, crossing his arms.

"Still?" the Doctor says, under Rose's "Already?"

He scowls at both of them.

"Well, no matter," the Doctor concedes, and then they are running.

\----

It's not like Tony goes out of his way to find extraterrestial situations in his life; he actually, _honestly_ does not. It's just, he seems rather good at attracting alien lifeforms. Or maybe MIT is just an alien hot-spot. It doesn't matter, though, because trouble has a way finding Tony anyway.

Trouble, of course, means the Doctor.

It's the pinstripe guy again, with the sticky hair and tennis shoes.

"Why are you always here?" The Doctor complains as Tony stalks with him through the basement of the technology section.

"Because you just show up a lot, I guess," Tony shoots back.

He isn't quite certain of _why_ they're in the basement, but he assumes it's because the snake-like aliens like cold and hard-to breathe air.

" _Welll_ ," the Doctor trails off as he presses them both against a wall and waves his sonic around the corner. "A lot happens here."

Which is true enough.

\----

He meets the first one he met, the old and frowny one, several more times. One time he's with a Clara Oswald who looks at Tony with large eyes and is very, very compassionate. She acts like she knows him, like he will know her, and she smiles and cries at the same time. She looks like Peggy, just for the slightest of seconds, when she squares her shoulders, holds her head high and steps in front to shield the Doctor.

The other time, when he's nineteen, he's with Bill Potts. Tony loves Bill Potts. Adores her. They meet for ten minutes because Tony is late for a meeting and doesn't have time for an alien invasion, but he still looks her up later and finds out she hasn't even been born yet.

Third time, Tony is just barely twenty and the Doctor doesn't smile.

\----

The first time Tony boards the TARDIS he is sixteen, James has become Rhodey, DUM-E has learned the basics of operating a coffee machine and Howard has told Tony to focus on more important things than AI's and space and the fabrication of time and reality.

He recognizes the noise easily. The whine of the TARDIS that has promised him adventures for years. The Doctor has a strict rule about kids, apparently, but MIT seems to pull him in quite often. Tony leaps off his chair and to the window between his and Rhodey's beds in time to see the TARDIS stabilize to the nook where is a popular place for secret meetings -if you want the whole school to know who you went there with.

Tony knows how that game is played.

Rhodey stirs on his bed and whines.

"Wasn't me, Honey Bear. Go back to sleep."

Rhodey mumbles and swats his hand but then he doesn't move even when Tony pokes his shoulder. Tony pets his shaved head, feeling a little sad. Rhodey would leave for the army in a year and Tony'd lose the only friend he has that is even remotely his age and not made by him.

Tony sees the Doctor dash out of his TARDIS and rushes to get out of his room. He grabs his own version of whatever it is that the Doctor calls a sonic screwdriver on the way, spreading his papers and pens in his haste. Tony doesn't have time to check if Rhodey is woken by the clatter.

The Doctor isn't hard to find. He's very shouty, especially this one. It's one Tony hasn't met yet, young and gangly and so childlike Tony _wonders_.

"Tony," the Doctor says, when all is said and done, and his eyes shine. "Tony. Will you come with me?"

Tony stands inside the TARDIS and caresses her walls and feels her, _in his_ _mind_. He wonders again.

"Once," he decides, "show me the Sun burn out."

The Doctor shows him the birth of a galaxy.

\----

"Where did you go?"

Tony stands still at the doorway to their room, hoping -futilely, of course -that Rhodey won't see him if he doesn't move.

"Nowhere."

It's a great lie. At least, it would be, if your friend hadn't both seen you leave and come back, and if that friend wasn't hard to lie to.

Rhodey raises an eyebrow.

"Out, the lab. I had an idea."

"Right."

Rhodey is no less unconvinced but it is night so he turns his back to Tony and goes back to sleep.

Tony sits on his bed, and when he closes his eyes, he dreams of stardust and darkness and light.

\----

He meets Doctor Martha Jones and Captain Jack Harkness and falls in love with them as violently as he has fallen in love with the stars, unexpeced and all-devouring.

He watches them shine, laugh at the face of death and then they look at him, like he's someone worth their time.

The Doctor isn't there with them. They travel with a vortex manipulator and Jack gives his to Tony for some reason. Martha and Jack hug him insistently and she kisses his head and Jack kisses him on the lips and Tony definitely kisses back.

\----

Tony takes the vortex manipulator apart, builds it back together and takes himself to the beginnings of human evolution.

(Just to prove a point.)

Tony keeps it hidden in the bottom drawer of his desk, but he never forgets.

\----

When Tony, age twenty-one, tells a five year old Sharon to shoot for the stars, he doesn't just mean for her to dream big. Tony wants to show her the stars; has ever since she had been born, honestly, but it would just be messy to bring a baby aboard the TARDIS.

Even if the Doctor loves babies.

Sharon jumps on the balls of her feet and asks Tony if he's ever seen the stars up close. Peggy shoots him a look -a look that means she knows, somehow -and Tony shakes his head.

"But maybe you will," he tells her and really hopes she does.

\----

River Song. The Doctor's wife.

Tony takes a shine on her immediately. She is bold and brave and doesn't give a _fuck_ , and she also seems to like Tony. That's always a plus.

A twenty five year old Tony Stark is smitten.

A how-ass-much old Doctor is not amused by their instant kinship.

"He's just jealous," she says and strolls around the console and pushes buttons and pulls levers just as naturally as anyone who has flown TARDIS for years. She is also much calmer than the Doctor. "He doesn't like it when I steal his friends."

Tony circles her and the TARDIS console and two or three times forgets the Doctor's legs are sticking to the platform from the stairs.

"You're definitely stealing me, then, he grins, a bit lovestruck, "would do good for him."

River casts a fond look towards the impossibly long and gangly legs of the Doctor. She leans in to Tony conspirationally.

"Two thousand years and he still acts like a child. I can't believe him."

She pulls the take-off lever and the TARDIS sets off to their next destination.

"She's not making the noise," Tony says absently. He eyes around the console and skips to the anomality. "Is it because of this? He never touches this."

River looks like she approves. "He drives with the brakes on. Likes the sound of it."

"It's a nice sound!" The Doctor chimes in, still sounding like a petulant child. River's nose scrunches up as she smiles.

"I can't drive her yet," Tony speaks up as River goes back to focusing on the console. "Do you think he'll ever show me how?"

River's lips curl up, amused and a little bit shark-like. "Better," she whispers, pulls down the final lever, "I think _she'll_ show you."

Tony thinks the Doctor gets pouty because River is cooler than him.

\----

Stark industries baranches. Tony designs a phone that would survive in the pressure of space, then throws it out TARDIS' door and watches it float.

He dumbs it down and shows it to the R&D and SI launches its first mobile phone.

He doesn't stop them from making weapons.

\----

TARDIS does show Tony how to fly. She _lets_ him fly her.

He's had the Doctor's motions memorized for years now, but the TARDIS has never responded to him.

Before.

It's exhilarating, the most alive Tony has felt in years.

The Doctor doesn't let him do it again because Tony doesn't like _the sound._

\---

 _Kind_ is not the first word Tony would use to describe the Doctor.

Maybe it's because Tony can't value kindness, doesn't understand the purpose of it despite Jarvis' best efforts. He hasn't learned how to understand it, even after twenty-six years of life. 

Maybe he will still learn. Maybe he still wants to.

The Doctor is old, powerful, lonely, beyond comprehension, _angry_ \- and kind.

Maybe, above all, _kind._

Tony sometimes forgets this -that a man like the Doctor feels kindness or mercy -when the Time Lord stands tall, alone and eyes blazing with fire. He faces a fleet of Alarian soldiers, surrounded by fire and storm, and _kind_ is not what Tony thinks of him.

Then the Doctor holds his hand out to a scared kid, and Tony thinks, he can still learn.

\----

Amy and Rory Pond.

"Come along, Ponds."

Tony watches as the Doctor guides the newlyweds outside, to the planet of Toran, for a romantic dinner of sorts. His wedding gift, a proper one this time. Tony couldn't go if he wanted to, because of his broken leg, and so he waits with the TARDIS.

He's not surprised the restaurant turns out to be harvesting its clientele or that he has to be the one to take TARDIS to them, because the Doctor is a pain in the ass.

"Next time don't text me," Tony complains as he waits for Rory to climb on board. Toranians are relatively short so he decided to just fly the TARDIS a few feet above ground since they also move in flocks. "Call the TARDIS. She's much faster and doesn't have a broken leg."

"I didn't have my sonic!" The Doctor complains. "What was I supposed to do?"

Tony shrugs and releases the brakes when Amy finally closes the door. TARDIS sets on her way. Tony lets her choose. "Anyway, since you kidnapped me from a perfectly good nap, I'll be going to your room," he points to the Doctor, who pouts like an idiot, "since you don't use it anyway."

And it's full of stuff to tinker with because Tony won't be able to sleep anyway, but at least no one will judge him. He hobbles down the hallway and pushes into the room that is hidden behind a TARDIS blue door.

Tony prefers the Doctor's room to his own, to be honest, and he'd profusely apologized to TARDIS for not using it. She had creaked and complained for a while, but the next time Tony curiously had peered in, the room had turned into a workshop.

He pulls a chair for his leg and settles on the bed and lets his mind wander. The TARDIS makes it so easy, for his mind to fly free. _With her._

Rory joins him two hours later with the excuse of Amy and the Doctor arguing. He checks Tony's health and in consolation sits with him. Listens and watches as Tony prattles on, holds him down when he's getting too excited to sit.

Rory Pond is extraordinary.

When Amy comes join them three hours later with tea, Tony has no choice but to drink it.

He thinks he falls asleep leaning on Rory's shoulder.

\----

The Ponds will go. He knows this. Clara will come after, then Bill Potts. But the Ponds will go. The more time Tony spends with them, he hopes he could say something. But he knows, without saying, how little it would help.

Amy and Rory Pond. Mother and Father to River Song and the In-Laws of the Doctor. It's comical, the less Tony thinks about losing them.

He's never been there for these things, not Rose not Martha not Clara. For Tony, to who home is a fixed point and everyone else just comes and goes, he can see them again. The TARDIS being stubborn, an alien invasion of some sort, just some random travel. Tony can see them. Sometimes.

He sees Martha and Rose with lessening frequency, and even though he's twenty nine and neither have begun their travels with the Doctor yet, officially, he _knows_ it means something.

\----

Tony met Cybermen for the first time when he was seventeen. He'd come out of that battle with a Cyberman's head and hundreds of weapons in his mind, which were later drawn onto paper and kept safe with the vortex manipulator.

This time, Tony is thirty, and the Doctor comes late.

Tony takes matters into his own hands. 

_"What were you thinking?"_ the Doctor asks afterwards, and Tony knows he's angry, but he only grins.

" _Doctor_."

Time Lords look good surrounded by fire.

\----

Martha, Tony learns, only meets him when he is thirty three, angry and alone. And in love. With Pepper Potts.

Martha Jones is already brilliant, already shining and fierce, and Tony doesn't love her any less.

But the Doctor is cruel with her, however unknowingly and when Tony tells her this, Martha smiles and tells him she knows.

\----

When Tony has bad days, he hides in his workshop and sits in the pile of alien tech he's collected.

He never does much anything with it, just sits and stares and JARVIS disapproves, but JARVIS doesn't know anything.

Well, not true. JARVIS knows everything because Tony has told him everything, of the Sontarans, Cybermen, _every_ _single_ alien Tony has ever encountered and the stories that surround them-

But no matter how clever JARVIS is, he doesn't know _emotion_ the same way Tony does.

\----

Rose Tyler brings a Jack Harkness who doesn't know Tony. And the Doctor. The Doctor is there too.

Tony learns Jack is immortal and a massive flirt, and the Doctor spends ninety percent of the time rolling his eyes, because what did he expect, bringing a man like Jack Harkness near Tony Stark?

(They also re-enact the kiss, but that's a side-issue.)

\----

Bill Potts laughs at his face about how old he's gotten.

"Shut it, lady, like you're any better. You'll age too. Faster than your friends because you're travelling with him."

Bill Potts is undeterred.

The Doctor mocks Tony too and Tony tells him to shove it.

They take him to 1941 to celebrate his birthday.

"You're way off," he tells them.

"Well, something else, then," Bill smiles, "like, gotten any awards?"

"Sure."

"And there you have it." The Doctor says and pouts when Tony pulls the brakes off just as the TARDIS is off.

"Why 1941?"

Neither have a good answer to that. They land in Madripoor, Southeast Asia, meet Wolverine and someone called Petrovich.

They also meet Natalia Romanova who stares Tony in the eye and almost pulls the trigger.

It's one hell of a fake birthday celebration.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the fourth season before Turn Left.

In Afganistan, Tony doesn't wonder why the Doctor doesn't miraculously show up to save him. Whenever the Doctor appears to where Tony is, it's never been about Tony. So he isn't surprised and he doesn't spend his time hoping.

Instead, be builds a suit and kills his way out. The Doctor has ingrained into Tony's brain that violence is never an option, but Tony does not only know better, he also knows the Doctor lies. Tony does not for one second believe the Doctor hasn't killed since the Time War, and he certainly does not care even if it was unwillingly.

Yinsen's death is probably why he does that, and maybe he is a bit bitter the Doctor doesn't show up.

Tony fights off vomit more times a day than he likes to, and it has nothing to do alcohol.

\----

The TARDIS stabilizes on the third floor of Tony's home, and he watches it from the safety of his workshop, finger ticking against the glass of the Arc Reactor. He doesn't know if he wants to see the Doctor. Tony has done something unforgivable, no matter how bad the people, and the Doctor never forgives murder. Though, Tony has played his part well; if he has; and the Doctor still shouldn't know exactly who he is. Tony knows the Time Lord has no interest in humanity outside the small people he finds and likes, and thus doesn't watch the news at all. On the other hand, every single companion Tony has ever met seemed to have known who he was. Bill Potts included, which at least meant Tony would be still alive by the year 2017, or he'd go out with a bang.

He watches as TARDIS' door opens hesitantly, and a redhead woman pokes her head out. Tony instantly likes her, because he likes everyone who has red hair.

"Donna!" Is heard from inside the TARDIS, and the woman disappears behind the door again. Tony's finger stops tapping as he waits for something else to happen. His finger is already on the intercom.

The doctor pokes his head out next, and Tony can tell he is confused by his surroundings. He sighs. This is not where they're supposed to be.

The Doctor turns his head back inside but doesn't make a move to go. "Whose house is this?"

"How should I know?!" Donna yells very loudly from inside. "I don't know how to read your thingamabing." Tony loves her.

He presses the intercom and can picture JARVIS rolling his metaphysical eyes.

"You are intruding on private property. Either leave immediately or exit your craft and surrender."

The Doctor swivels his head around as Donna crams to look outside too.

"I know that voice," he says to Donna who rolls her eyes and just pushes the two of them out of the TARDIS.

"Then we're alright, ain't we? Do your alien schtick and all's well."

The Doctor scrunches his face and they get in an argument about her bossing him around. Tony cackles loudly over the intercom.

"J, make sure no one gets close to the TARDIS. Actually, just don't let anyone in at all. I'm not home."

Jarvis answers something reproacheful about Rhodey that Tony calls bullshit to, and takes Tony's lift to the third floor.

"-and just because you're a Time Lord doesn't mean you know everything, you prawn!"

"Prawn?" The Doctor gasps as if mortally offended, "prawn? Donna I cannot believe you would sink so low as to call me names."

Donna crosses her arms, looking very inumpressed as she does so. "I've always called you names, Spaceman. It's not my fault you don't like them."

"As much as I'm enjoying this," Tony calls out. He struts out of the elevator, hands hidden behind his back because his sweatpants don't have pockets. "I have to break this apart if I want you two out of here any time soon."

Donna gapes and the Doctor smiles.

"Tony Stark!" They both say, but sound very different. Tony smiles and indulges Donna as she repeatedly tugs at the Doctor's sleeve.

That's me," he offers in a form of greeting, spreading his arms to show off, just a bit. "A surprise visit?"

The Doctor pulls at his sleeve to straighten it after Donna's grip. "To both of us, it seems."

Tony glances at the TARDIS and grins. Of course.

"So," he extends a hand to Donna, "who's the lovely lady?"

To further his claim of already loving her, Donna eyes him a bit suspiciously as she takes his hand. "Donna Noble," she says. Though her cheeks color, she doesn't lose her composure. "It's a pleasure."

"Pleasure's all mine," Tony grins, to which Donna lets go of his hand but replaces her suspicion with a cheeky grin of her own.

"Yes, now," the Doctor says testily, because he apparently hates other people (even remotely) flirting and not including him. "Donna and I should get going."

Tony raises his arms in mock surrender and watches them disappear into the TARDIS. The door closes and the engine whirs twice before thumping, the TARDIS saying she'd _rather stay, thanks_.

Tony crosses his arms and lifts an eyebrow as the Doctor pokes his head out.

"I think she wants me on board," Tony suggests with what he knows is a shit-eating grin.

The Doctor narrows his eyes.

\----

Departing from home this morning, getting nearly frozen to death on an Ood planet (the Doctor firmly refuses to acknowledge any freezing that might have happened but it had been cold!) and then crying her eyes out, Donna Noble had not been prepared for Tony Stark.

Well, no one can be prepared for Tony Stark, but she had just not been expecting him. It's one of those things. Tony Stark is a billionaire, genius, gets around, not bad on the eyes. The Doctor is two of those things.

And they know each other.

And now Donna knows Tony Stark too.

She can't tell if she's happy or disappointed by the fact that Tony Stark is nothing she expected while simultaneously being exactly that. He and the Doctor are like children, misbehaving across the universe and geeking over things Donna doesn't understand. And she's like their older sister sometimes, herding them off trouble and telling them that just because it's shiny you shouldn't stick your fingers in it -but also encouraging some mischief: Donna Nobe is no saint!

She is impossibly fond already. Also tired.

The Doctor very rarely sleeps, she knew that already, but for Tony sleep is like poison. Donna has to remind him that he's still human and -surprise surprise -humans do need sleep, genius or not, Iron Man or not.

And Donna wants to sleep.

She has half a mind to just hit both of them unconcious, but also doesn't have the heart to do it.

According to the Doctor, Tony is still fresh out of Afganistan, and if Donna has nightmares about Pompeii, she has no doubt Tony has nightmares about Afganistan. So instead of forcing him to sleep, Donna makes tea. Tony calls tea an astrocity, but he still sits down and drinks it when Donna stares at him long enough.

It doesn't matter that the tea is relaxing and helps falling asleep, but Tony sleeps for four hours that day. And when he wakes up, Donna is there.

\----

It's just Tony's particular brand of luck that the first time he embarks on an alien planet with one Donna Noble, another Doctor and Tony are there.

And nothing wrong with that, particularly, if future Tony and Doctor had thought to stay together. But they hadn't, and so Tony has a very confusing day. He hops between the chinny Doctor and the one with the Hair and tries to find Future Tony in the same mess, who he can only assume is going through the same thing. Tony can't believe he has to do this twice.

Tony barely even manages to make it to the right TARDIS, the chinny and leggy Doctor dragging him home so enthusiastically.

"Now that's what I call a conspiracy!" The Doctor cheers when the TARDIS doors close behind them. Donna blows her bangs off her face and leans against the railing.

"And of course your first instinct was to poke your fingers in it, wasn't it, Sunshine? You messed up a perfectly good holiday and a _somewhat_ functional government. Those are rare as is."

"Oh, don't pretend you didn't like it, Donna," the Doctor dismisses her most likely entirely reasonable criticism -it's not like Tony'd know. "We had a blast, didn't we, Tony?"

"Yeah, absolutely." Tony says and somehow manages to not sound like he is dying.

Donna looks dubious because Tony, as circumstances stand, did not have a blast. 

\----

"Martha!"

Tony can almost see the Doctor's grimace as he bounds from the TARDIS. Martha instead smiles widely and accepts his hug.

"Tony!" She looks him up and down, "Are you traveling with him now?"

"Nah, the Doctor's just a bonus."

"Oh, that's just rude," the Doctor mutters as Tony turns to see Donna exit the TARDIS. The redhead practically beams at seeing Martha, probably correctly guessing _how_ she knows the Doctor.

"I'm traveling with _her._ Donna Noble, Martha Jones. Martha, Donna, don't take over the world."

Martha's smile slips just a little, but never goes hostile or angry. "His latest companion, I take it."

"Now, don't fight," the Doctor inputs uselessly and goes ignored because obviously the women aren't going to _fight_.

"I see you didn't take long to replace him," Donna grins as she takes Martha's hands. Tony looks at the ring on her finger too and grins widely. The Doctor makes a confused noise. "Who's the lucky fella?"

"Tom Milligan," Martha says with a smug grin, "one very lucky guy. I work for UNIT now," she continues, almost off-hand, "medical officer."

And then they start fondly badmouthing the Doctor, but -luckily before they can start on Tony -soon the reason Martha called them in becomes apparent.

"ATMOS? Never heard of it."

Tony turns the equipment in his hands.

"That would be because you don't live in the regular folks' world," Martha comments casually.

"That would be." Tony passes a look at the Doctor, who has been far to close for far too long, buzzing his sonic at the device.

"Well, it's advanced for the year, but-" Tony refrains from saying he could do better than that. See? He can be nice _Rhodey._

"It's not alien," the Doctor continues for him, taking the device from his hands.

"Right, so," Donna bursts in, "I've done some digging and, guess what? There's not a single leave recorded in this file. It's completely empty."

Tony frowns. "That's suspicious. You'd think with a company this size there'd be at least _someone_ sick."

The Doctor grins at Donna. "Oh, brilliant, you are! I'm going to pay a visit to Luke Rattigan, who wants to come?"

\----

It turns out Sylvia Noble isn't very fond of playboy, billionaire, philanthrophists. Or, one that is Tony Stark, anyway.

"You've run off with _him_?" She's asking Donna, " _Tony Stark_? Is he keeping you?"

Tony sees Donna frown thunderously, his girl's face twisting up with so much anger he is _frightened_. Tony isn't happy about Sylvia's implications, or the way she doesn't trust her adult daughter, but he also knows Donna doesn't want him saying anything.

"Of _course_ you'd think that! No! I didn't run off with Tony nor is he paying me anything! I've been traveling with him and the Doctor!"

"The Doctor?" Sylvia could not look any more disgusted if she tried. "That same skinny man from you and Lance's wedding? _Donna-_ "

Wilfred bumps his arm against Tony's and then inclines his head towards the back door.

They slip out quietly.

"You and the Doctor taking care of my Donna?" He asks.

"She takes care of us, more like," Tony grins, "but yes. Whenever we can. She means a lot to us."

Wilfred smiles proudly. "That's my Donna."

\----

As Tony watches the sky burn, he has a very vivid flashback to his childhood. 

The very first time he met the Doctor. A crazy man on a christmas evening and wet fire. It's no wonder Tony never was a normal kid.

"That should do it."

Tony turns in time to catch the last of the Doctor's goodbye speech.

"Hey!" He yells, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I'm saving you, Tony Stark," the Doctor answers, in the haughty way he gets when he's emotional. Then he teleports away and Tony has to watch over Martha and Donna.

"He'll come back," Donna says strongly, "he has to come back."

"Yeah, I don't know about- hey! Kid!"

Rattigan freezes with his nervous pacing. Tony knows what's going on in his head -great minds think alike, whether he likes it or not.

"What're we thinking?"

"This is my fault, isn't it?"

" _Somewhat_ , yeah."

"You did help."

"I'd say so, yes."

Rattigan does not look surprised they didn't disagree with him. Instead, he takes a deep breath, springs into the teleport and activates it.

"Wait!" Donna yells, futilely, because he's already gone. Tony hugs her and Martha a bit tighter, but doesn't tear his gaze from the teleport.

Sure enough; the Doctor stumbles through, wide-eyed and shocked.

"Doctor! Are you alright?" Donna helps the Time Lord stand, compassionate eyes and looks. They all know what'll happen to Rattigan, but even after the Sontarans are officially gone, both Doctor and Donna wait by the teleport. Tony's in no rush to get them going, and so he talks softly with Martha.

"It's been great seeing you. Let's do coffee next time."

\----

They don't get to do coffee just yet.

So, Messaline. A bit of a mess. As much as Tony had wanted to get like, at least one trip with both Donna and Martha on board, this is not what he'd had in mind.

"This isn't the coffee I was thinking of," he decisively tells Martha when she pulls him outside (she isn't pulling him: Tony is desperate to keep up with her, actually. He'll kill everyone and then himself if something happens to Martha).

"I know," she laughs, "but this is more fun."

They lose a dolphin alien. Tony isn't compassionate enough to be sad about it, but he is grateful he saved Martha's life. 

It's good he isn't, though, because Tony isn't sure Martha could've gotten around to actually walking if he wasn't.

"Hey, I got you. He saved you for nothing if you stay here to die."

It's not really helping her, but at least she's moving.

When they reunite with Donna and the Doctor, they still have the clone tagging along. Except this time, it seems like the Doctor doesn't mind her presence.

"I'm Jenny," she says, and Tony loves Jenny. She's still so impossibly _young_ that Tony has trouble accepeting her (and, additionally their whole army) as an adult who is a qualified soldier.

But Donna especially seems to love Jenny, and it's rubbed off on the Doctor. Tony thinks, maybe Jenny could come with them.

\----

Tony never understood the universe's need to take things away from people like the Doctor.

He doesn't cry for Jenny, has no energy or compassion left to. All of it goes to the Doctor, who has lost another person, another _family_. Tony can feel his pain, his suffering, from the long since severed and not yet formed mental link they once upon a time had. 

Donna turns her head from Tony's chest where she'd buried it as a first reaction (so terribly close to the arc reactor, so close she should feel it's warmth), and staggers over to the grieving Doctor. She wraps herself around him, giving motherly comfort though she's never been a mother herself

Tony finds himself Martha to hold on to.

None of them try to stop the Doctor when he takes the gun to Cobb's head. Tony wouldn't care, he especially has no sympathy for Cobb. Martha and Donna _trust_ that the Doctor wouldn't shoot.

And he doesn't.

" _I never would."_

\----

The TARDIS is silent as they leave. 

Tony retreats not long after they board, knowing full well the Doctor doesn't need his brooding there as well.

The mental link is still lingering open, strange but less misplaced inside the TARDIS, a timeless space as she is. Tony hasn't felt the link in several years, as it had only ever been a brief connection, to make sure the Doctor wouldn't lose Tony.

But thanks to it, he can feel the calm rage, the loss that wellows inside of the Doctor like a sea.

Tony's never wanted to feel that again, especially because the Doctor has never been quite aware of what he lets through.

TARDIS pods at the open link curiously, and Tony strokes her wall gently.

"Don't let him know," he says, "it'll close eventually."

\----

It's on some planet or another, the Doctor is distracted by the strange and shiny things and they left Donna to have coffee with Martha, and it's _just there._

_The fountain of youth._

Of one sort, anyway.

It's a pretty little lake, blue and shimmery like in all those fairy tales, and the water reads non-toxic and mostly the same as applejuice.

Tony isn't really expecting it to work when he dips his hand in and washes his face with the water, but it costs three buttons from one of the Doctor's jackets, so it doesn't _hurt_.

He takes a sip and it tastes like coconuts.

Nothing feels different, so Tony shrugs and leaves it be. 

Worth a try.

\----

Agatha Christie is one of Tony's favorite authors. He's read her books since being a child, addicted to the murder mysteries like any healthy boy of age seven. He hasn't had time to read in a few years, but it doesn't mean he admires her any less.

Not only is she brilliant, she is kind, too. And Tony might not be big on kindness, it's not where he bases his understanding of people, but he admires kind people.

And they would have had a blast, honestly, if not for the giant wasp and the cyanide poisoning. Well, Tony is still mostly amused, especially by the comedy gold going on in front of him right now.

" _Salt_! I was _miming_ _salt_!"

Tony watches as Donna and Agatha rush to the cabinet, and Donna returns with a brown paper bag.

"How's this?"

"What is it?"

"Salt!"

"That's too salty."

Tony doesn't even attempt to hide his barking laugh.

"Oh, that's _too_ salty," Donna rolls her eyes and takes the salt back. Agatha emerges with anchovies.

The Doctor goes back to hand-gestures, slpaying his hands open and shaking them.

Tony presses a hand over his mouth in an attempt of holding his laughter in. Just in case the Doctor dies.

"Shock! I need a shock!"

Tony already has half a mind to tell the Doctor something -like that he and Jack Harkness totally fucked -but Donna is ahead of him.

"Okay. Big shock, coming right up."

And she kisses him. The Doctor, not Tony, though Tony feels like it would work just as well. And he wouldn't mind.

Anyway, the kiss works and the Doctor lives to see another day.

"Ahh, detox, gotta do it more often." He pauses at Donna's horrified look and somehow goes from being a man who just fought off cyanide to a meek boy. "The- the detox, not-"

Donna lifts her eyebrow.

\-----

"River Song!" Tony opens his arms, well isn't this incredible. "How delighted to meet you."

River's eyebrows rise. "Oh, you're actually traveling with this one, you're talking like him."

Tony feels ridiculous being this happy to see her. Though, River is one of his favorite people ever even if she isn't ginger. But she does have magnificent hair. Maybe Tony just really likes hair. That's weird.

"No?" He says, " _Really_? Oh, I am. Look at that."

River's nose scrunches up in a smile.  
"Oi!" The Doctor interrupts, "You know her, Tony?"

"Yes, we've met a fair few times," he glances back, "you'll meet her too."

"Tony, now," River warns, but she seems to understand this is the Doctor meeting her for the first time. "Spoilers."

Tony hangs back with Donna, counting the shadows and watching. He's not used to seeing River so sad, but he kind of understands the feeling. With Peggy's Alzheimer's, it's rare she remembers Tony. He's always Howard, except when he's just a kind stranger, visiting an old, lonely lady out of good will.

When River pulls out the sonic screwdriver, Tony's world goes sideways. He knows the signifigance behind that single object. River Song dies today. Here, at the library. The beginning and the end, the same day, same place.

Poetic, if Tony were one for such things.

Tony distracts himself by pulling out his own sonic. It's not a screwdriver, he'll never call it that, but looks similar. Tony's just fond of the design.

"Oh," River says fondly, "you still have that."

"Upgraded and better but yes, I do. Never seem to be able to part with it."

"Wait," the Doctor and Donna say. "You have a sonic screwdriver?"

Tony rolls his eyes and scans the shadows.

"Have had for years, Doctor. Is this how you found out? I always wondered how you just accepted it."

"What. Tony-"

Oh shit. Right. It has been so fun Tony forgot he hasn't exactly told the Doctor he knows the future him.

"No time, Doctor," he says and hopes that's enough, "these shadows are alive."

And the Doctor is off. "Vashta Nerada! Flesh eating shadows. Ohh, this is bad."

The Doctor takes Tony and Donna to a teleport and Tony wakes up in his bed with his wife.

Her name is Julie and they have two kids, a boy and a girl. They're just like any other boy and a girl, exactly. Identical. Julie is a good wife in a sense, but Tony doesn't love her. He kind of, _knows_ he does, but he _doesn't_. The main issue here is that the only person Tony would ever marry is Pepper -or maybe Rhodey, if there is ever need. So no matter how the memories are there ready for him like a whole romance novel Tony would never read, it doesn't feel real.

Because Rhodey, Pepper and Happy are like distant memories from his childhood.

His sense of time is disorted, like it was in the cave, and Tony is not happy about that.

He gets to places by thinking about them and he remembers being there for the kids' births but he doesn't _remember_. 

Tony doesn't know where he is, but he knows it's not his life.

The world is wrong.

He should find Donna.

\----

River is dead and the Doctor is torn.

Donna tries, and Tony hints. He knows, the Doctor is never without a plan. They leave River's diary on the railing and twenty-five seconds later the Doctor shouts and runs back.

Tony holds Donna's hand. "It's fine," he says, "he just got something."

River Song lives.

\----

"How was it?" Donna asks, after it all. She leans on the wall of Tony's room, right next to the door where she can slip out as easily as she slipped in.

"Wrong," Tony answers without need for her to elaborate. He peeks at her, meets the sadness of her eyes.

"Right," Donna says, mouth curled down. "Wrong."

Tony knows she's trying to convince herself of many things currently. How she didn't really love her husband and children, how it all, the years of it, only happened in the space of a few hours.

"It felt real," he continues softly, more for her sake, and turns back to look at the sonic laid out in pieces in front of him. "All the memories. I _knew_ I lived..." he trails off, turns back to Donna because she is more important than whatever he can't focus on right now.

"I loved him," Donna tells him. "Really did. And the kids, I... I couldn't tell what I knew was wrong."

"People view the world in different ways," Tony mumbles something he is fairly certain the Doctor would say, "notice different things. It's not your fault."

Donna sighs. She walks to him, leans her hip against the table.

"How could you tell?"

Tony takes the hand she is offering him, smooths a thumb over the soft skin.

"Pepper." He clears his throat. "The only person I want to ever marry is Pepper. That's why the memories didn't make sense. Why I loved her."

Donna's smile is soft. "That's sweet."

"I suppose it is."

She closes her eyes. Tony listens to her breath waver. His grip on her hand tightens. He knows it's harder for her, because she really did love him and the children she had, because it was her dream and it was real.

"Makes sense mine wouldn't even be real," she says quietly, chuckles wetly, "The perfect man for me."

"I think he was real," Tony says. Donna gasps, wetly, and then exhales very slowly.

"Don't." She pleads, "Please, I just- _don't._ "

He doesn't.

\-----

They decide Donna deserves a vacation. 

The Doctor assures that Midnight is a delightful place for Donna to relax while he and Tony _quote "do things without worrying you" unquote._

\-----

Tony goes with the Doctor on the bus drive.

He both regrets and is immensely glad he did.

"No one will touch the Doctor or you'll have to deal with me."

Tony has not been quite this angry since Afganistan and Yinsen. His heart is hammering away, breath constricting in his chest. His blood roars, Tony feels like he is flying.

He has missed this readiness. A clear head and every detail cataloqued in his mind. He loves it.

"He's just one man!" The husband -whatever his name is, Tony never bothered to find out -says but he doesn't move. No one does.  
Tony knows what he looks like. He can see his reflection on the door opposite, right past the creature inside Skye's body.

He is angry.

And they can see it too.

"He is under its control," the creature says. The Doctor repeats and Tony can't bear the pain in his voice. "This is how it does it."

"It _isn't_." The student or whatever with the lost moon, insists. She's smart, Tony likes her.

"Shut up," the professor says "You're not an expert on this. You don't know anything."

"Oh but you do?" Tony snaps. He's never been good with listening to people being put down for their intellect, unless it is called for. In this case, it's definitely not. "Just minutes ago you said there's no life on this planet and look at that! A brand new life form you know nothing about."

The professor hesitates just the barest seconds before regaining the arrogance of knowing one thing really well. He sends Tony a look, as if whatever he has coming could insult Tony's intelligence.

"Well, I didn't hear anything from you, either."

Tony rolls his eyes. "For God's sake," he mumbles under his breath. Well, as long as they wait, just until the rescue team gets here.

"Throw them out!" Skye shouts suddenly. The creature isn't holding back anymore. It startles them to a move. The Doctor echoes.

They don't get far. Tony has been learning, with JARVIS' guidance, fighting techiques he can use with the suit on. They work without it just as well.

"Aim for his chest." He hears, in the middle of punching the professor's nose. His heart surges up to his throat, hammering away, and Tony can't _breathe_. Fear eats at him, as he claws at the husbands ear, shields the Arc Reactor with his other hand. The professor shoves him, and Tony stumbles, leg catching on the edge of a seat. On his way down, Tony grabs the husband and they both fall down in a heap of limbs.

Tony growls. Kicks and hears the nose finally break. The Professor staggers back, and Tony starts pushing at the husband.

"You're not the first one who tries to take my heart away," he growls, stands up again. It seems Tony is very good at that; falling and standing back up.

"No one touches the Doctor."  
For a while there's just silence and Tony's harsh breaths.

Skye doesn't quite glare. Tony wonders why no one else is watching her, seeing what he sees. It starts talking, to make to Doctor start repeating, to remind everyone, they're still not 'safe'.

It's not Skye in there anymore, and no matter how much Tony wants it to be, for the Doctor's sake, he thinks he should just throw her out and save the others. Even if they don't deserve it.

" _Biff_!" The wife says, voice shrill and promising annoyance. "You're just going to stand there?"

And oh, what a man wouldn't do for his wife. Apparently murder is not off that list.

Tony thinks, as he digs his nails into the soft skin of the red-shirted man and tears, that the creature is pointing out a very obvious ability of itself. Everyone is yelling, something or other, echoing Skye or not, but Tony just wants to think.

It doesn't directly control anyone. But it's good with words. Smart, fast, learning. No, yes. Smart. Very smart. It didn't choose the Doctor _because_ he's the smartest in the room. It chose the Doctor because everyone was already against the Doctor. Afraid and stupid, looking for a simple explanation -and there it had been. The strange man that is smarter than them. And what scares people more than someone who knows something they don't?

"Allon-sy!"

What follows Tony watches from the crack between the men. How the Hostess opens the door and takes Skye with her, how they get sucked in and the door closes.

Her "six" echoes in the sudden silence.

Tony wrenches himself free and tears the husband off the Doctor. He shoves with his whole weight, to get them away from the Doctor, breaks away from the holds they instinctively still take to grab on him.

"You..." he pants, "You _idiots_."

He hears the Doctor's pants, gasps for air and repetitive 'it's gone, it's gone.' Tony doesn't tear his eyes away until he can be sure none of them will try anything. Then he turns, helps the Doctor sit up.

"You're okay," he whispers, makes the Doctor look at him, "you're okay."

He presses the Doctor's forehead to his, wonders if a mental link would help or worsen things.

"I said it was her."

Tony has never snapped his head around so fast. He snarls, like an animal.

"Don't you fucking dare."

\----

"They could have killed you," the Doctor says from the doorway of his room. Tony looks up from the Iron Man gauntlet in his hands.

It would have been useful today.

"Same goes for you."

The Time Lord rubs the back of his neck. "I owe you an apology."

"A gratitude breakfast is what you owe me." Tony shoots back, refusing the apology. It wasn't the Doctor's fault. "I knew what I was getting into when I started traveling with you, Doctor. This had nothing to do with you."

And it didn't. It would have happened anyway, and they would have either killed an innocent person or each other. It isn't the Doctor's fault. Tony pats the bed. The Doctor hesitantly obeys.

"If I had died today," Tony starts. The Doctor makes a wounded sound in his throat. " _If_ I had, I would have died proud. That's something I wouldn't have been able to say a few months back."

The Doctor sits in silence.


End file.
